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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Jenny Reyn was one of the many anonymous toilers in the field who worked for British nursery comics for decades, producing delicate, colourful fairy tales and adaptations of young children's television shows, amongst them The Herbs, Barnaby and Babar.

Jenny Reyn was actually her working name, her real name was Edna Reynolds, Clarke once married. She was born in 1913 in Sittingbourne, her father a gardener and her mother a cook. The family moved because of work first to Chertsey and then to Fulmer in Buckinghamshire when she was about two. She lived in a cottage on the Fulmer Chase Estate with her parents and two older sisters; it sounded an idyllic childhood. The headmistress of the local school noticed her artistic talent and the council provided a bicycle so that Edna was able to attend the art school in Wycombe.

Collins Little Folks Annual

Pippin Annual 1979

On leaving she taught at a girl's private school, but then found work with Ralph Mott advertising studio in London in 1932. Her next job was as one of the first animators for Halas and Batchelor, first at Bush House in London and then as the bombing got worse they moved out to Bushey (apparently there were just six animators) later returning to London in Soho Square. She worked on films such as Digging for Victory (1942), Jungle Warfare (1943), warning soldiers of foot rot, and Handling Ships (1944-45), about ship control and navigation.

Daily Sketch Children's Annual

Parsley Annual 1973

Her first child was born in 1946 so she regretfully had to stop work. Her second daughter was born in 1950.

Wishing to continue working she was taken on by the Judy Boland Studio as a freelance illustrator and worked on various children's books and comics, Robin Annual, Sunny Stories, Daily Sketch Children's Annual, Collins Little Folks Annual and Playways Annual. She was a friend of the illustrators Hilda Boswell and Bill Backhouse ("I think Hilda helped her find her way into comics," says her daughter, Corinne).

Barbar Annual 1972

Collins Little Folks Annual

In the 1960s she worked on the Pippin and Playland comics, producing a spread every week something she continued to do right into her seventies, other annuals she worked on were the Pippin Annual, the Barnaby Annual, the Babar Annual and the Parsley Annual.

Today is the seventieth birthday of D. C. Thomson's The Beano Comic. Dated July 30, 1938, the first issue was actually released a few days before, on Tuesday, July 26th, but the tradition for British comics is to date them for the week-ending, in this case, the following Saturday.

The Beano Comic of today is a world away from the paper that debuted in 1938. The original 28 pages were a mixture of adventure and cartoon strips plus a healthy dose of text stories. This was an innovative format, unlike any of the rival papers published by Amalgamated Press. Thomsons had produced The Dandy Comic some thirty-five weeks earlier, which could be said to be the first 'modern' comic. Text stories aside, the Dandy and Beano aren't so different in format from their modern counterparts, approximately 8½ x 12 inches, colour covers and a free gift to give the new title a good send-off.

The Beano featured a free Whoopee Mask, now a much-prized treasure for collectors. The first issue sells for thousands of pounds—a copy with the free gift sold for £6,200 in February 1999, although the current record price is over £7,500.

Most of us—and I include myself—have only ever seen the cover of this piece of history, which got me thinking... what do we know about the man who drew that first strip that graced the first page of the very first Beano...

Like The Dandy Comic, launched shortly before Christmas in 1937, The Beano featured an anthropomorphic animal on its cover, although unlike The Dandy's 'Korky the Cat', Big Eggo was able to talk from the first panel (Korky would eventually find his voice). The gangling ostrich has lost his egg, finds one which could be his but which turns out to belong to an alligator, as Eggo discovers when it hatches.

The artist was Reg Carter, whose work in comics was studied by the late Bill Lofts, who said of Carter: "His tow most distinctive characteristics were his rather wooden-looking figures, more often than not wearing cloth caps (the forerunners of Andy Capp, perhaps?), with large rings around the eyes that gave them a cods-eye appearance. Strangely enough, his comic animals always seemed to have more life in them—probably why his 'Big Eggo' was accepted, and no doubt devised, to lead off page one of The Beano at the start of this famous comic's long run."

Reginald Arthur Lay Carter was born in Southwold, Blything, East Suffolk, on December 6, 1886, the son of Francis Wilby Carter (1856- ), a successful decorator, who had married Barbara Lay in 1883. Reginald was their second son.

In his teens, Reg Carter was already to be found drawing for several glossy and humourous magazines and, in 1914, contributed to the London Fun and Laughter Show, a curious event about which nobody seems to know anything. He also drew golfing sketches and picture postcard paintings of the Southwold Railway.

Shortly after the end of the Great War, Carter made his way into comics and, with issue 13 of Kinema Comic, began producing the full page 'Artful Antics of Babe Hardy'—as Oliver Hardy (pre-Laurel) was known. "It is interesting to note," says Bill Lofts, "that the large, burly figure of Babe Hardy, with bowler hat and moustache, usually in the form of a bullying foreman, featured a great deal in Carter's comic strips in forthcoming years."

His next strip—for Merry & Bright in 1921—featured Ernie Mayne, the music hall comedian. A year later, Carter created his first original character, 'Priceless Percy', in Sports Fun. Carter then followed Harold Mansfield, a former A.P. editor who left under something of a cloud, to a new venture called Monster Comic, where he created 'Wireless Willie and Broadcast Bertie', thought to be the first characters in comic strip form connected with that new discovery, the radio (a theme he returned to in 1931 when he produced 'Raymond Radio and Walter Wavelength' for Sparkler).

Denis Gifford noted that Carter seemed to specialise in alliterative characters in various walks of everyday employment: 'Ferdinand the Fire Fighter', 'Bill Bonzo the Billiard Marker', 'Happy Harold the Van Boy', 'Gussy the Gas Meter Manipulator' to name but a few.

Mansfield's operation was eventually bought out by his former employers, the Amalgamated Press, in 1928 and Carter's output began to tail off, although to young fans of cheap comics, he must have seemed one of the most prolific artists around as Mansfield sold the plates to his early titles to C. A. Ransom, who published dozens of reprints (Merry Moments, The Tip Top Comic, The Up-to-Date Comic, The Sunny Comic, etc.) derived from Mansfield's Monster Comic and Golden Penny Comic.

Carter found work with Frolix, the short-lived photogravure comic for nursery children and then with H. Louis Diamond, drawing for Sparkler, and thence back to the A.P. and Bo-Peep.

Carter found regular work on the early issues of Mickey Mouse Weekly, where he drew 'Troubles of Father', 'Bob the Bugler', 'Sea Shanties' and 'Circus Capers'. It was not to last: Carter's work looked rather old-fashioned compared to the lively style that Walt Disney was inspiring in other strips and Carter's next appearance was with another new paper, The Beano.

He kept up a steady supply of strips for The Beano for its first decade. 'Big Eggo' ran for 358 episodes, although later strips, reduced to a few panels, were drawn by George Drysdale. Carter switched to new characters 'Freddy Flipperfeet' (1947-48) and 'Peter Penguin' (1948-49). The latter strip came to an end in issue 361 (14 May 1949), a few weeks after the death of its creator. Reg Carter died on April 24, 1949, aged 62, leaving a small fortune although, as Bill Lofts pointed out, it is doubtful that this was gained purely from his artwork. Most editors recalled seeing his work, often when they were rejecting it as sub-standard, although none recalled ever meeting Carter himself.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The BBC News Magazine (29 July) has a brief report on a 1997 strip by Alan C. Martin & Jamie Hewlett. 'The 16s' was, according to Martin, the pair's answer to 'The Peanuts': "It's an eternal summer, always set outdoors, with archetypal characters. And it looks like the missing link between Tank Girl and Gorillaz," Martin is quoted as saying. "The 16s was a name that I'd had kicking around for a long time, taken from glam-band The Sweet's single The Six Teens. It had nothing to do with the strip or characters, but seemed to fit nicely."

The strip was the last collaboration between Martin and Hewlett following the disastrous Tank Girl movie.

Martin is currently writing new TG stories for the Judge Dredd Megazine, which will begin in the relaunch issue, #275.

H. Tamblyn-Watts is an artist I've meant to jot down some notes on for ages. A year ago I did a bit of research into the Tamblyn-Watts family tree to see if I could discover where the name originated and published the results back in July 2007.

Harold Tamblyn-Watts is a name recognised by quite a few researchers into British comics. At the time my interest was his work on 'Out and About with Uncle Ben' for Jack & Jill (1962-64) and 'Katie Country Mouse' for the same paper, which he took over drawing from Philip Mendoza in 1964 and would draw for many years. To most British comics' collectors and to the much larger group of Gerry Anderson fans, he is inextricably linked through his work on 'Supercar' for TV Comic in 1961. He also contributed illustrations to Eagle Annual and Girl Annual, so he touches base with many collectors. In the mid-1960s he also drew 'The Pingwings' for TV Playland.

Harold William Tamblyn-Watts was born in Settle, Yorkshire, on May 5, 1900, the son of Thomas Massey Fisher Tamblyn Watts, a Westcliffe-on-Sea-based author and publisher who produced a number of books in the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from The Home Electrician (1927) to Wonderful Plants. Harold was educated at Southend School of Art and worked as Studio Manager for the Emmett Group in 1935-48. He exhibited watercolours and illustrated numerous books, especially nature and animal books for young children.

He lived in Shirley, Croydon, Surrey, where he died in November 1999. He was survived by a son, Graham. He was predeceased by his wife, May, and a second son, Stuart.

Tamblyn-Watts, who served in both World Wars, earned a brief local infamy in Shirley when a neighbour complained about his bagpipe playing and had to practice on Shirley Hills; the incident was reported in a national daily newspaper.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

A while back I was asked about the 'Wes Slade' strip drawn by George Stokes for the Sunday Express. Unfortunately, I didn't even have the basic information of when it started and finished and a phonecall to the Express didn't help as, I was told, they didn't have any information on the strip.

As luck would have it, I was recently contacted by Germund von Wowern from Sweden, himself a comic book editor, who very generously sent me some copies of the strip. From these I've worked out that the strip must have started on Sunday, 29 January 1961. Not sure when it ended but the last strip Germund sent was for a story that ended on 13 February 1972, although the strip may have continued beyond that date.

The stories ran for around 13 to 16 weeks so the example at the top of the column was approximately the 7th story to appear. The last strip is numbered 567, implying that there were some 39 or so stories up to that point.

There is still very little known about the strip or its artist. George Stokes had worked for Mick Anglo in the early 1950s (prior to that I believe he had served with the Canadian Air Force) and then produced some strips for Fleetway. But the bulk of his career seems to have been dedicated to Wes Slade which he originally wrote and drew; later stories were written by Jim Edgar.

Below is a very rough schedule of stories based on the scattered examples I now have: if anyone can fill any gaps, please feel free to drop me a line.

Update: 27 July 2008: I've been able to add quite a bit of detail thanks to an e-mail received from Franco Giacomini who sent me a listing of Italian reprints. I ringraziamenti, Franco. [I hope that's "thanks, Franco".] I've retained the Italian titles as they may help i.d. further story titles in the future.Further Update: 23 May 2011: My thanks to Torbjörn Svensson (see Comments) for much additional information about the end of the run. Torbjörn tells me that Jim Edgar is credited as the writer on the strip from the story 'Green Lebanon' in 1979 and that Harry Bishop took over as artist during the run of the story 'The Territory' in 1980.

Somewhere I've got a copy of the little Wes Slade reprint put out by Express Newspapers in 1979 (which makes me think that the strip probably carried on well beyond 1972). The book contained three stories and I'll fill in the details when the book surfaces from whatever nook or cranny it's hiding in. Update: David Simpson filled in the story titles for me back when this was originally posted. We can now see from Franco's list that it reprinted the first three stories and the third tale was indeed rather short.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Mooney briefly discusses 'Teddy Tail', the long-running Daily Mail comic strip—the first of its kind in British newspapers, which began life in April 1915. Teddy was "the mouse that will make your children laugh", originally drawn by Charles Folkard. Hugely popular (there were numerous books of his adventures, a club (the Teddy Tail League) and annuals), Teddy finally went to the great cheese factory in the sky in 1960.

"There were no speech bubbles; the narrative was beneath the pictures (or at the side) and the storylines were tame," says Mooney of an annual she has managed to find. "No matter. Think what was going on in the world in 1915 when Teddy Tail first gave pleasure with his innocent pranks. He was needed. And Beano's longevity reminds us how much children still need the energetic, subversive humour of The Bash Street Kids and Dennis the Menace. Pressured by school and by SATs fiascos, they need to laugh."

That's true for all of us. It's eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, and the coffee hasn't started to kick in. Thirty-five years ago, I'd have been legging it down to the newsagent to pick up my copy of Valiant, alternatively being dragged and dragging the dog along for his morning walk. The newsagent was about fifteen minutes walk and I couldn't wait to get there to find out what was happening this week to Rick and Charlie Wild, Louis Crandell and Tim Kelly. Nowadays I head online to scan through the headlines in the newspapers first thing in the morning and I'm thinking of weaning myself off them because I'm sure it's responsible for me starting the day miserable or angry. Thirty-five years ago it would have been the first week of the summer holidays and we'd have been celebrating the beautiful weather and every day had the promise of infinite possibilities. Nowadays, it's all knife crime and the cost of gas and electricity soaring.

My point isn't that I've turned completely into a miserable old git but that we could all do with a laugh. I'm thinking: establish a cheerful mood first thing by cruising through some of the very funny web-comics that are available on the internet; get started on the day's work while my brain is fresh; don't look at the papers until at least 9 o'clock or even 10 o'clock.

The little pessimistic devil whispering in my ear tells me the reality will probably be: spend too long looking at web-comics; start work late and distracted wondering what's been going on in the world. Where's that little optimistic angel when you need her for balance?

On Wednesday I wrote "By the time you read this I should have the Sci-Fi Art book just about in the bag." I wasn't fibbing: I managed to finish and send off the introduction. Thursday and Friday were a complete change of pace: translating The Robots of Danderzei for the next Storm—The Collection volume due in a couple of months. I've still to do the introduction but I'll hopefully have that wrapped up on Sunday leaving me free to start something fresh on Monday morning.

More good news: Frank Bellamy's King Arthur has been sent off to the printers, as has The Art of the Trigan Empire, a catalogue of Trigan artwork for sale via the Illustration Art Gallery. I wrote a brief introduction to it a month or so ago. Both should be out in time for the London ABC Show on Sunday, 21 September, where I shall be sat, pen in hand, while people wander past with sideways glances and puzzled looks wondering who the heck I am. Wasn't he the guy who sat next to Syd Jordan last year? Or maybe a few people will take pity and ask me to sign something.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Orion’s new audio version of the first half of Dan Dare’s first ever adventure from Eagle sticks rigidly to Frank Hampson’s original script and this is a major strength of the production. Hampson’s story is well paced and his witty script, with strong character interplay, transfers well to audio. Without the pictures some listeners may find parts of the story hard to follow but this was not an issue for me, although this may be because I know it so well.

The production is presented by just three actors and a narrator but, thanks to the versatility of Rupert Degas, who plays most of the characters, it sounds like a full cast recording. Having said that, Degas’ accent for Digby occasionally slips across the Pennines, but this is a minor criticism as he captures Digby’s (and Hampson’s) dry Lancashire wit extremely well.

Less successful is Tom Goodman Hill’s rather pompous reading of Dan Dare and the exaggerated tone of the production, which reminds me of the B.B.C.’s 1972 remake of the first ‘Dick Barton: Special Agent’ radio serial from 1946. Of course, the original may also have been performed in exaggerated style but it was before my time. Whether it was or not, I thought that the unnatural enthusiasm and exaggeration by the actors to try to punctuate the ‘action’ scenes spoiled the production by making a parody of what could have been a tense and exciting story. This is partly true of Orion’s ‘Dan Dare’, although I think the story rises above misguided attempts to overact it.

As in the B.B.C. radio adaptation of the same story in 1990, the Treens have a distinctly metallic tone in their voices, which was probably achieved by using a ring modulator. Years ago some friends and I recorded our own plays on tape and one of them, a science fiction pastiche, featured the Mekon and Treens. We used our own voices without recourse to technological aids, creating a rasping reptilian sound from the back of our throats to convey Treen speech. It proved quite effective and was surely more in the spirit of Frank Hampson’s original concept of the Treens, who were neither robots nor cybernetic creatures. It was rather painful on our throats though, but nothing that a couple of strepsils couldn’t cure.

The Theron characters are also given their own accent, which sounds like a mild American accent. While a slightly more exotic accent might be more effective, the idea of giving them their own distinct accent is a good one, especially in the absence of visual images to distinguish them.

Peter Rinne’s music punctuates the action well and the sound effects are also successful. I look forward to Part Two …

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Anita Hewett was a popular writer of short stories, many of them published in collections by Bodley Head in the 1950s and 1960s. Later books (and her work was still in print in the 1990s) were reprints of earlier titles. She also contributed to Robin Annuals 2, 3 and 4 (1954-56).

Anita Mary Hewett was born in Wellington, Somerset, on 23 March 1918, the daughter of Harold Frank Hewett and his wife Anita (nee Welsh). Harold worked at Ellworthy's woollen mill at Westford, following in the footsteps of his father (Harold) and grandfather (Samuel), who had been a manager of the mill. The Hewett's had three children, Walter, Anita and Margaret Helen, all raised Baptists by their father who was a Deacon, Sunday School Superintendent and organist at the Rockwell Green Church. Anita ran the 'baby class' at Sunday School. It is no surprise that her own religious education meant she secured 100% and won a prize in an annual national Scripture Examination in 1934.

Anita was educated at Blackdown School, Wellington, and the University College of the South-West. Despite the fact that the Hewetts were an important family locally, Anita rebelled against her religious upbringing and after working as a teacher, left Wellington to found a school for young children in Kingston, Surrey. She began writing in the 1950s, also contributing the the BBC's Listen With Mother radio series. In the 1960s she was a producer for BBC schools radio and produced Let's Join In and Poetry Corner. She retired from the BBC in 1973 but continued to write scripts for schools radio, now BBC Education.

In October 1966, she married a widower named Richard Duke and the two lived in East Molesey, where Anita had moved to in around 1963. She continued to write very successfully, her animal stories gathered together in The Anita Hewett Animal Story Book (1972) which was reprinted in 1988 as The Puffin Book of Animal Stories. Several of her books were translated into a variety of languages and have also been popular in Japan.

In the 1980s, she scripted a BBC series for primary schools called Talk To Me and turned the script into a book which remains unpublished. Anita Duke died in the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher in March 1989, aged 70.

One of her children's novels, The Elworthy Children (1963), was autobiographical (the family name coming from the factory where Anita's family had worked). It was translated into several languages and won a prize from the Austrian Education Department for being accepted as a 'standard reader' in their schools.

(* My thanks to Sue Gresham, a relation of Anita Hewett, who very kindly dropped me a line with a great deal of additional information. This was little more than a stub when originally posted 4 May 2007. Sue also sent the picture, which is from the jacket of The Anita Hewett Animal Story Book.

(The picture of Mrs Mopple's Washing Line was nabbed from Amazon.co.uk where many of Anita Hewett's books can be found, although none appear to be in print any more.)

The Guardian (23 July) has a report on the Ken Sprague Fund competition based around the theme of global warming. 19 of the winners and runners-up can be found in a related gallery, including the winning entry by Russian cartoonist Mikhail Zlatovsky (above).

I don't know if this was part of the same competition—I've a feeling it may have been—but I saved the following cartoon recently... funny and scary at the same time.

Another picture saved recently is even more scary because it's not a cartoon but a photo. If I remember correctly, it's a church in Spain which once sat on the edge of lake that has now completely dried up. There's just something haunting about it...

By the time you read this I should have the Sci-Fi Art book just about in the bag. I managed to finish all bar one of the captions by Friday and spent the weekend putting together a short article on the Trigan Empire and sticking silver foil to walls (well, not really silver foil—that reflective stuff you put behind radiators). Monday was a bit of a train wreck : the redecorating was finished and much admired; the light fittings were re-fitted and the radiators re-hung. Then, disaster: tested the heating and nothing worked so we had to call in a plumber to sort it out—something to do with the pressure in the system dropping below the point where the boiler automatically cuts off.

That wasn't the first problem we had: the new back door, hung only a couple of weeks ago, has shifted slightly, so we can only close it by giving it a shove and a hefty kick simultaneously. The paintwork was signed off by our landlord's agent yesterday, which leaves the door open (pun intended) for the third lot of builders to come in shortly to rip down the porch and fix the foundations. Oh, joy! Hope they get the back door fixed before they board up the front of the house.

But I've got my TV back. So all's right with the world. I can order food online and they can pass it in through the shiny new windows.

But, back at the book. I now have most of the introduction finished and it should be done before the end of the day, God and builders willing. I'm rather embarrassed to say that I'm the last of the five authors to get their sections finished. But the book has a forgiving editor and it was the biggest section so I don't feel too guilty.

Next up on my schedule is to finish off the translation for Storm book 18 and the introduction to Storm—The Collection volume 9. I'm not sure when these are due out. Possibly October, but that's a guess. Next week I'm planning to start work on another comics reprint project (which I'm keen to announce but I need to leave something to talk about later this year!) and probably the next Trigan Empire volume, which I imagine should wrap up my 2008 publications schedule. I don't think I can squeeze any more books in... but never say never! I may have to because my bank balance isn't looking too healthy at the moment.

A quick update on the Eagle dummy #2 that I mentioned recently: the whole thing can be found at Wakefield Carter's Lost Character's of Frank Hampson website. Lovely to see some of those strips—including a full page of colour Norman Thelwell artwork previously unpublished (see above). Hopefully some of the few surviving members of Hampson's team from the early Bakehouse Studio days will be able to comment (Greta Tomlinson and Bruce Cornwell are certainly still around).

And, finally, it looks like the second volume of War Picture Library reprints, Against All Odds, will be out as scheduled. I'm told that the first advance copies have just arrived at the Carlton offices and it looks good. It's officially out a week next Monday. I'll post the usual column with all the details for those of you who like to know who wrote and drew the stories.

Empire have a nice trailer-to-comics comparison for Watchmen. Lew Stringer has been getting into the right mood by re-reading the Absolute Watchmen collection. Meanwhile, Matthew Badham is promising to Send Alan Moore a Fiver if he goes to watch the film. It's scheduled for release on 6 March 2009 so there's still a while to go. Not quite so long before we get to see Frank Miller's take on The Spirit. It's due out on Christmas Day in the USA and on 2 January 2009 in the UK.

* Quite a while back I mentioned that the old D. C. Thomson Starblazer series was to be the basis for a new adventure game. Cubicle 7 have just released a 40-page preview [pdf] of the games' system for Starblazer Adventures at their website. The finished book, by Chris Birch and Stuart Newman, will run to over 620 pages and feature dozens of background features, including lists of major characters—both heroes and villains—who appeared in the various stories, settings, alien races and a lot more. It promises to be an interesting guide to the series even if you're not into gaming.

(* Another picture that didn't quite make it into the Sci-Fi Art book—lovely though it is. Frank Kelly Freas art for Fantastic Universe (April 1955) illustrating Algis Budrys' short story 'Who?', which I thought of using alongside Robert Engle's cover for the novel. Sadly, this one would have required a lot of cleaning up and we already had some very good examples of Freas. Incidentally, the story advertised on the cover is also by Budrys under the pen-name William Scarff.)

On 14 July, The Timesran a piece by Melanie Reid entitled "Mystery of the Italian brothers in at the birth of The Beano" in which she discussed the launch of the Happy Birthday Beano! exhibition, which opened on 18 July (and runs to 20 September) at the Lamb Gallery, University of Dundee.

A curiosity about the early issues of The Beano inspired the title: "An exhibition to mark the landmark anniversary of the venerable magazine reveals that in 1938 the Dinelli brothers were responsible for a cartoon, The Adventures of Robert Robot, that they posted to the publisher's headquarters in Dundee from their home in Italy."

By an odd coincidence, this was something I had hoped to discuss during the anniversary week of The Beano but, since the cat's peeking out of the bag already, I thought I'd put my tuppence-worth in now.

Actually it's only about a penny's worth... the brothers were actually called Torelli rather than Dinelli. I believe they were almost certainly Tristano and Bubi Torelli but a dig around Google hasn't turned up much at all. The Torelli brothers were based in Milan and subsequently published under the imprint of editore Torelli (or possibly Albi di Torelli) a number of comic books, including Il Piccolo Sceriffo (1948-65), an adventure strip featuring a young boy called Kit who becomes the sheriff of Prairie Town following the murder of his father. which ran to some 480 issues in various series. Torelli also published Sciuscia (1949-65), a story of the Canadian Mounted Police, and Nat del Santa Cruz (dates unknown).

How, ten years before the creation of The Little Sheriff, they came to be working for D. C. Thomson I've no idea, but they were responsible for two strips: 'Brave Captain Kipper' and 'Tin-Can Tommy' (The Clockwork Boy). The former strip ran for just over a year, coming to an end in issue 57 (26 August 1939). The latter, originally called 'The Adventures of Robert Robot', was about a couple who had lost their child and were given a robot boy as a replacement. "The Futurist style was admired," says Melanie Reid, "but [their] grasp of a snappy title was not, and the Robert Robot strip was swiftly renamed 'Tin-Can Tommy' for British consumption."

The Torelli brothers supplied the strip each week until issue 69 (18 November 1939). They had last been heard from a few months earlier when they wrote to D. C. Thomson to say that they were in France to avoid the unrest and were hoping to return to Italy soon to continue drawing. "Don't worry, our countries will not go to war," they wrote. Unfortunately, a few days later war did break out and 'Tin-Can Tommy' was continued by another artist, Sam Fair. The Torelli brothers had no further contact with Thomsons, even after the war.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Having something of a black sense of humour but I can't help laughing at the juxtoposition of this story from today's Guardian and the advert next to it. "Hands up who wants one?"

You just can't help wondering what kind of morons are running the MoD. You lose a laptop or two and that's unfortunate. Any business would make allowances for the loss: there are people out there who will steal anything that's not nailed down.

But at what point do you increase your security and stop people taking sensitive data off-site? After three laptops have been stolen? Five? Ten? A dozen?

Or maybe you just think that sending out a memo saying: "Don't take laptops with sensitive data on them out of this office" costs more than the laptop. When does it become cost effective? The equivalent of twenty laptops? Thirty? Forty?

Once you get to fifty stolen laptops or seventy-five—oh, hell, let's go for broke and make it a hundred—you'd think that someone would ask the obvious question: are these personal laptops. If the answer is yes, why are you putting sensitive data on them? If the answer is no, why are you taking Government property out of the office? From the wording of the report these do appear to be MoD-owned laptops.

After you've lost one hundred and fifty laptops wouldn't you start asking people not to take them out of the office? And at two hundred wouldn't you tell them not to take them out of the office? At what point do you say: if your laptop contains sensitive data please do not take it out of the office. At two hundred and fifty is your memo more strongly worded (lose the "please")? At three hundred do you write your memo in CAPITAL LETTERS and stop using a smiley at the end?

When do you start firing people for neglect or gross incompetence or just plain idiocy? Four hundred? Five hundred? And the guy in charge... what's he doing about it? Is he resolving the problem? Is he, maybe, so weak in the head that losing five hundred laptops doesn't register as a problem? Is five hundred lost laptops just an inconvenience? How about five hundred and fifty? How about six hundred?

What other place of work would allow six hundred and fifty-nine laptops to be stolen? And we are, surely, talking about losses within the borders of the UK... surely not in combat zones. Would you risk committing sensitive information to a laptop that might fall into enemy hands? Once through overconfidence, maybe twice—but you're dealing in lives here, not property.

So: Hands up, who wants an MoD computer? Seems to me it won't be long before enough have gone missing for us all to have one.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The first science fiction story that really had an impact on me was Eric Frank Russell's 'Alamagoosa' which I remember reading when I was about 12 years old, a fabulous and hilarious story that looses nothing however many times I read it. Russell published far too little and there's a fair amount of work that remains uncollected—I'd love to do a volume of 'The Early Eric Frank Russell', for instance, to rescue a few of his pre-1950s tales that have never reappeared. They're mostly of archaeological interest only, but I still think it would make a nice collection. Indeed, he's one author I'd love to have a set of 'Complete Stories of...' volumes for on my shelves. Maybe... one day...

Deep Space. New York, Fantasy Press, 1954; London, Eyre Spottiswoode, 1956; also with one story omitted, New York, Bantam, 1955(contains: First Person—Singular; The Witness; Last Blast; Homo Saps; The Timid Tiger; A Little Oil; Rainbows End; The Undecided; Second Genesis. NOTE: First Person—Singular omitted from some editions)

Dark Tides. London, Dobson, 1962(contains: The Sin of Hyacinth Peuch; With a Blunt Instrument; A Matter of Instinct; I’m a Stranger Here Myself; This Ones On Me; I Hear You Calling; Wisel The Ponderer; Sole Solution; Rhythm of the Rats; Me and My Shadow; Bitter End)

(* That last one really is Eric Frank Russell writing in the guise of Linacre Lane, Bachelor of Scouse; I believe it only came to light when some of Russell's papers were donated to the Science Fiction Foundation by his daughter in 1994.)

BEAR ALLEY BOOKS

AVAILABLE NOW!Forgotten Authors Vol.1Click here for details and payment options"This is utterly fascinating: what a terrific accomplishment! It has held and engaged me. Authors who are only names have been documented and recorded, from the pathetic to the successful, and everywhere in between. This is incredible research, and I cannot begin to thank you enough for sharing it. I’m dipping into it with absolutely enormous pleasure."—Richard Bleiler"Recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of books, book publishing, obscure authors or even researching family history. Looking forward to Volume 2"—Amazon review.

AVAILABLE NOW!The Men Behind Flying Saucer ReviewClick here for details and payment options"Beginning in 1955, the Flying Saucer Review has been key to chronicling the appearance of Unidentified Flying Objects and the latest theories of why they have been appearing in our skies. A dedicated group of enthusiasts - amongst them an accountant, a publisher's editor, a test pilot, a novelist and a member of the House of Lords - were amongst those who helped put together this remarkable magazine. Who they were and how they came to work together makes for a fascinating tale, some of it as curious as the phenomena the magazine studied."

AVAILABLE NOW!Countdown to TV ActionClick here for details and payment options."The perfect compliment to my set of Countdown/TV Action" - Graham Bleathman."A wonderful trip down memory lane. Recommended" - Paul Simpson, Sci-Fi Bulletin"If you read Countdown as a child, you'll be fascinated by this account of its making ... indispensable." - John Freeman, Down the Tubes"The definitive history of the title" - Lew Stringer, Blimey!"I urge you to grab a copy and give Steve Holland a tip of the hat for the amount of hard work, research and love he's poured into making a book of information become an interesting story" - Barnaby Eaton-Jones, The Cult Den

Lion King of Picture Story PapersClick here to order"It's a great read in itself and has sent me back to the Lion comic to re-read some of my childhood favourites. The pictures are reproduced crystal clearly and even this old man can read the original art ... It's a gorgeous book and if we are snow-bound as the media has been saying for weeks, I have plenty to keep me amused this chilly January weekend!" - Norman Boyd.

Sexton Blake Annual 1941Click here to order"If you've been meaning to give Sexton Blake's adventures a try, this would be a great place to start. I've seen the actual annuals go on Ebay for three or four hundred bucks, so this is definitely a bargain too." - Singular Points.

Peter Jackson's London Is Stranger Than FictionClick here to order"The original books have been highly collectable for many years now, but finally they’ve been republished in a single volume from Bear Alley Books ... for the ridiculously reasonable price of £14.99. Do yourself a favour. " Christopher Fowler.

OUT OF PRINT!ArenaClick here for details and payment options"This book goes straight to the top of my large reading pile" - Graeme Neil Reid"With reality TV overload and the rise of the risque and the brutality of today’s society, this story still has a pertinent message for those of us who are willing to listen to it. In fact, I think the story is more relevant today than it was in 1979." - Colin Noble, Down the Tubes"The story is a fun read, but the star of the show is the art. Alcatena is a class act." - Hibernia Comics